


Resurfacing

by stone_in_focus



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Internal Monologue, M/M, Mass Effect 3, POV Kaidan Alenko, POV Second Person, Post Game, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-05 01:16:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/717189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stone_in_focus/pseuds/stone_in_focus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lungs have a way of feeling heavy when Shepard's not around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resurfacing

Young soldiers say adrenaline’s better than oxygen any day.

But old soldiers like you know adrenaline only carries you so far into the night.

Pacing’s one thing you’ve never gotten right. And you don’t exactly have the luxury of practicing when it’s backs against the wall and knees digging into sweat-soaked sheets, worlds falling down around you as you fall into each other.

No one’s ever taught you how to exorcise demons, either, but you have to learn all the same. It’s a brash and fumbled mess, unshaved cheeks against weathered skin, already beading at the tip before the elastic slips off, but it’s yours. And when you bury his name in the crook of his neck, his fingernails raking through your hair and down the arc of your spine, you know you’re his. Completely.

It hasn’t always been like this, attached at the hip with the stars all aligned. Too many chasms lay in your way after duty called you elsewhere, and even in dreams, you could never reach far enough across the void before death stole more than just the air in his lungs.

Somehow, though, you ventured through the valley and found each other underneath the gaping expanse, tired and weary and needing something to believe in again.

And maybe that’s all you really know—how to reel the other in when the head starts to reel back. It’s easy to be breathless when your battered bones feel light and he feels fuzzy against your mouth. Gravity doesn’t exist when you’re suspended in his arms and at the mercy of a flick of the wrist, lower lip caught between his teeth and dick pressing into the heat of his palm.

And god, he makes you come hard, but the coming down is harder.

Coming down’s a different kind of trembling.

You wouldn’t trade these restless nights for anything, hand on his thigh and nose grazing the hard line across his shoulders, waiting to hear the snoring that’s intermittent at best before you, too, allow yourself to drift into a fitful slumber. But somewhere in the recesses of your mind, you wonder if sleep just takes you one step closer to losing it. Losing him.

You’ve been through that darkness before, and you still forget that accepting the consequences and dealing with them are two separate things.

Truth is, breathing’s not so simple after the chest has time to settle. You never notice how heavy the lungs sink and how tight the heart feels inside your ribs until the euphoria starts to drain out through your stomach; until the words begin to rip through sinew and flesh without the damnedest clue if it’s too soon or too crass to say,  _I love you so fucking much, Shepard._

But more often, it’s too late. Pacing’s the one thing you’ve never gotten right, after all. Shepard’s never going to know how to quit until fate cuts that thread and leaves you dangling over the edge once more, nothing but cold steel at your fingertips as it burns his name into your palm.

And then it’s back against the wall, knees hitting the floor, entire worlds razed but yours ravaged twice over.

Running out of breath wasn’t so bad while you still had someone to catch you.

Weeks later, Liara brings you a pair of mangled dog tags before the rumors start. You’ve only made out the  _K_  and the  _ENKO_ when she says, “He’s alive, Major. Barely. But alive.”

Next to a makeshift cot awash in fluorescent grey light, you don’t notice when knuckles get raw and muscles grow numb sitting in that piss poor excuse for a chair. You only notice when his chest rises, his hand weaker than your knees and still the only one strong enough to pull you back to shore. 

“Barely” is when you start breathing again.


End file.
